I Wasn’t Dead When I Wrote This

Youth minister Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart gives a powerful testament to life in I Wasn’t Dead When I Wrote This, a collection of the best practical advice she has given and received while working with young people. Written in her final months before dying of cancer, here are a few examples of Calderone-Stewart’s wise counsel:

Learning how to forgive is one of the most essential tasks of adulthood.

You don’t have to save the world.
You only have to find the one area in which you can serve.

Don’t waste a minute of your life regretting who you are orwondering why you couldn’t be some other person.
You are just what the world needs now.

It is never too late to change your life or to shape someone else’s—and Calderone-Stewart does just that with this honest, heartfelt perspective on living written a few months before dying.

Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart was the founder of Tomorrow's Present, a leadership group for young people. Calderone was a popular national speaker and an author of many popular books on spirituality and youth ministry. After a long illness, she died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is survived by her two sons.